Your Right to Know

View SlideshowRequest to buy this photoFred Squillante | DISPATCHPlacing campaign signs along rights of way is illegal, but enforcement is lax. These signs clutter an E. Livingston Avenue exit ramp Downtown.

What has become an accepted campaign-season tradition — planting candidate signs along highway
medians, freeway exits and on street corners — is, in fact, illegal.

Even judicial candidates have signs that litter public rights of way throughout Columbus.

For example, Valoria Hoover, a Republican candidate for Franklin County Common Pleas Court
judge, and Kim Brown, her Democratic opponent, might not be directly responsible for planting the
signs, but some residents are unhappy about the growing number of eyesores.

“It’s a tremendous amount of waste,” said Elizabeth Lessner, a Short North resident and
co-founder of the Columbus Food League.“What it tells me about the candidates is they couldn’t care
less about the environment.”

While the practice might be illegal, enforcement is usually lax.

“It’s called abandoned property,” said Columbus City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr. “
Basically, it should not be done. … All those signs you see in the freeway should not be
there."

He said it’s become an “accepted tradition.”

“Who do you hold accountable for it?” Pfeiffer said. “People have said to me, ‘It’s the campaign
who did it.’ But how do I know that?”

The Ohio Department of Transportation also does not allow signs to be placed along interstates,
state routes or U.S. routes. But the agency does not rush to remove the signs, either.

“If those signs create a sight (or) distance hazard to the motoring public, they will be
removed,” said Nancy Burton, an ODOT spokeswoman.She said pedestrians are not allowed on
interstates or exit ramps.Lessner said she encourages people to remove campaign signs when they
can, and to call ODOT when they can’t get to them.She said she is part of a team of “sign ninjas”
who have collected hundreds of illegally placed signs and stored them at a recycling facility.

“It’s like weeds,” she said.

Brown’s campaign does not endorse placing signs on public rights of way, said campaign manager
Jennifer Adair.

“When we do see them, we ... have a policy to remove them,” Adair said. “Obviously, as someone
running for judge, it’s very important for Kim (Brown) that we don’t violate the law on the
campaign trail to get her elected.”

Hoover’s campaign did not return calls for comment.

Pamela Engel is a fellow in Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Statehouse News
Bureau.